Nuclear power won't fix the energy problem

[vanesch]

The fact is, as far as I could tell, until the algae option came along, there was no viable option to oil.

You are right. In fact, I like a lot that algae thing. However, it is still in its infancy, and we have to see how it works out on large scale - if there aren't any serious problems with it (pollution?), what is its growth potential, etc...
In any case, the first sector to tackle will be transportation. That's already a big chunk. Once that's done, we'll have to see in what way it can still expand in the electricity sector.

In the US, we euphemistically refer to this as closing the barn door after the horse got out.

Right. The problem is that the barn has a lot of doors. It isn't clear that because the US for instance wouldn't go for nuclear, that others won't, and the material used for a nuke in the US might as well come from somewhere else. It could come from France, or from Russia, or from Japan, or from China or from... Also, those materials have been around already for 50 years or more. There are tons and tons everywhere. So the risk, if risk there is, will be taken in any case - it is not clear in how much you seriously diminish the risk by not using nuclear power yourself. You pay the full price of refusing to use the technology, but you pay also a serious part of the price of the risk.
Finally, civil nuclear technology is not the only way, not even the main road, to nuclear weapons. Most nuclear states built their weapons independently from their civil nuclear technology. Israel doesn't have civil nuclear energy. The US and the former Soviet Union built nuclear weapons before they had civil nuclear energy, it was a spinoff. Pakistan used a research reactor ; so did North Korea. Iran was caught experimenting with laser enrichment, something which is relatively small scale, and unrelated to nuclear power.

However, wouldn't plutonium be much more effective, and wouldn't terrorists know this?

It would be extremely effective in scaring the hell out of people: gee, my town is under a cloud of plutonium ! However, in fact, plutonium is much less of a problem than, say, cobalt. Plutonium has two properties which make it not such a great radiation hazard: it is mainly an alpha emitter. That makes it very dangerous when ingested, but almost totally harmless as an external radiation source. And second, it binds very very quickly chemically to things like clay and most soils. So it quickly gets out of the air and the water. You simply don't have to inhale it, and you shouldn't eat too much of it either. But it doesn't spread easily. You have to consider it more like a poison than like a radiation source.
So if you want to kill people with stuff they have to ingest, I would really go for a biological agent. It is designed for it. Or with arsenic. Or with DDT. Or with dioxines.

The "best" dirty bomb stuff is hard gamma emitters. They irradiate stuff externally. This is not stuff you find mainly in nuclear fuels, but rather in industrial and medical applications.

Also, note that except for maybe a few unhappy bystanders, who get such a high dose that they suffer from acute radiation sickness (and are probably in any case killed by the blast), a dirty bomb won't kill many people on the spot. It will just slightly increase the risk of cancer for those most exposed.

Given access to Pu or U, isn't it far easier to make an effective dirty bomb, than it is to engineer the perfect virus? From what I understand, it is easy to play games with viruses, but to make a highly effective virus for biological warfare is far more difficult.

Again, Pu, or even better, U, is not much of a problem. Sure, it will contaminate surfaces, and depending on the place, this will mean an expensive cleanup, but it is acts just as a poison, not as an external radiation hazard. It will do much less damage than the same quantity of any virus or any other effective poison. But I agree that it will scare the hell out of people.

In fact, concerning U, we have continuously a "dirty bomb" going off in the US: it is called a coal fired power plant. http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

For instance, at Chernobyl, the released uranium and plutonium are not the worrisome stuff. The most dangerous stuff was the immediate release of I-131, something that decays in a week's time (so it is not present in any "old" fuel), and of course the two nasty ones: Cs-137 and Sr-90, because of their 30 years half life, which makes them still pretty active, and on the other hand, still present for a long time. Moreover chemically, they tend to get absorbed by living creatures.

You make some good points and I will stew on this a bit . To me, risk to benefit analysis is the proper way to look at this. What is not clear to me is the scope of the risk. What about the loss of economic centers; the loss of commerce; the loss of strategic ports, cancer risks, birth defects... when a million people die in a million different places, speaking purely analytically about it, the effect on the general populous is insignificant, however I don't see this as being the case if we lose an entire city or cities, in one or a few catostrophic events. I don't think we can directly compare the two situations. But as I said, I need to think about that one to consider the distinctions.

Yes. That's why people are afraid of taking the airplane, but not the car. They don't like to die in groups
As I said, a destruction of a lot of people cannot be the result of a dirty bomb. Some will maybe get a cancer, 30 years later, because of it. But people won't drop dead. A nuclear blast of course is something else. I agree that Manhattan partly destroyed by a nuclear blast would be a serious catastrophe. That said, is it really much worse than the tsunami which killed several hundred thousand and destroyed the coastline of southeast Asia a few years ago ?

I'm not saying that these are negligible events. But again, in what measure is not using nuclear power in the US going to diminish that risk, and what is going to be the price to pay for not using nuclear power, and relying on coal ?

(added by edit). Finally, there's something else. A nuclear blast of a Hiroshima-like bomb (already an achievement for a terrorist group!) is most effective when exploded at a certain altitude above ground zero. Most people in Hiroshima died/were burned from the flash of the explosion, and the altitude of explosion was optimized for maximum blast effect. If you set off a bomb on the ground, the effect is much, much smaller. It will still be a very destructive event, but I don't think it will destroy much beyond a 500 meter range. The Hiroshima bomb was exploded at 600 m altitude and had a destruction radius of 1.6 km.

There's something else I thought about. You wrote that algae could be used as a CO2 scrubber for coal plants. That doesn't work! They will release the CO2 upon burning the fuel you make out of it. Algae are only CO2 neutral if they take up CO2 and then release it again upon the use of the fuel, they are no storage of new CO2.

 

[vanesch]

As for the argument of potential risk, this comes to mind: If you want to consider the social, ecomomic, and political consequences of a nuclear terrorist attack, or nuclear sabotage, consider what a dozen guys with box knives managed to accomplish, on 911.

Now, what order of magnitude shall we apply in order to anticipate the effects of a catastrophic nuclear event?

Yes, but that is because the political reaction to 9/11 was totally misplaced. The best thing to do in case of a terrorist attack is to minimize it, and Dubya did exactly the opposite. One should have rebuild the WTC or something similar. The Japanese rebuild Hiroshima.

And, again, who tells you that the nuke made by the terrorists came from the US civil nuclear sector ?

 

[mheslep]

This is kind of off topic. But since storage has been mentioned I though you might be interested in this method of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity" .

Yes, yes, it is very good. There have already been discussions about that (too lazy to look up the threads). Pumping stations cost about $2,- per installed Watt, for about 6 hours of autonomy. So as buffer it is ok, but if you take it as a main source, you're in trouble, when you need to replace a wind farm for a week, or solar panels in winter. You have then a significant increase in price per watt. Also, you need the right geography. In Holland for instance, it's not easy to find the slope...

The PF thread diversion on pump storage started here and went on for a page or two:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1644146&postcount=70

Pumped storage goes as low as $0.80 / W at this 2800W facility, largest in the world:
http://www.dom.com/about/stations/hydro/bath.jsp

 

[mheslep]

... Iran was caught experimenting with laser enrichment, something which is relatively small scale, and unrelated to nuclear power...

We've been there already, over here:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1720012&postcount=173
and here
https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1721430&postcount=188
Laser enrichment is a red herring, no rogue state is going to enrich enough material in this century to make a bomb from it, unless some unwise major technological powers invest to make it real.

 

[mheslep]

Earlier post on costs.
https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1723696&postcount=200

Nuclear Cost:
I like the 2003 MIT Report "The Future of Nuclear Power" for my gold standard. It is not without criticism, but everyone pro and con seems to use it as a baseline for discussion. They cost nuclear at 6.7cents/kW-hr as of 2002, no tax breaks included, with several suggestions that would take it down to 5 or 4 theoretically. On the other hand we have the very recently proposed 2.2GW Levi Florida project with a cost of $14B + $3B transmission, or ~$7/W; no chance of $0.06/kw-hr power coming from Levi at that cost.

http://www.sptimes.com/2008/03/11/news_pf/State/Nuke_plant_price_trip.shtml
No doubt the Levi cost of $17B is in part high because of unnecessary regulatory hurdles brought by anti-nuclear lobbies. None the less $17B for 2.2GW is the number currently on the table; its folly to dash on without streamlining the cost first.

Wind Cost:
UK BWEA report, 2005, with 2003 costs.
http://www.bwea.com/pdf/briefings/target-2005-small.pdf
Average onshore: $0.06 / kw-hr
Average offshore: $0.11 / kw-hr

US Dept. of Energy Cost report, 2006:
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/pdfs/41435.pdf, page 10.
-Busbar price
-Reduced by/inludes the available US tax breaks - the federal 'PTC' which is $0.015 / kw-hr
-Reduced by/includes 'Renewable Energy Certs', RECs - unknown but only 10% of the 2006 installations got them.
Average: $0.036 / kw-hr over 5.6GW installed, one sigma range $0.023 /kw-hr to $0.049 / kw-hr
With the above caveats worse case should be $0.049+$0.015=$0.064 /kw-hr actual generation cost.

 

[vanesch]

Pumped storage goes as low as $0.80 / W at this 2800W facility, largest in the world:
http://www.dom.com/about/stations/hydro/bath.jsp

I remember.

However,
1) that thing is from 1985, so now it might be more expensive (shall we take nuclear plant prices from beginning of the 80ies ?)
2) it is 2100 MW generating, but only 420 MW pumping

so if they have to pump (day) as much as they consume (night), you only have 420 MW available, hence about $4,- per installed reversible watt.

 

[vanesch]

http://www.sptimes.com/2008/03/11/news_pf/State/Nuke_plant_price_trip.shtml
No doubt the Levi cost of $17B is in part high because of unnecessary regulatory hurdles brought by anti-nuclear lobbies. None the less $17B for 2.2GW is the number currently on the table; its folly to dash on without streamlining the cost first.

I really find that cost crazily high. I guess the problem is that there is no plan to build, say, 30 power plants of the same design in a single project. That would give one a real idea of what is the actual "production" price of a power plant.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

So...nothing can be made failsafe, but we should require nuclear power to be? That's a rediculous, illogical, self-contradictory,

Come on Russ, keep up. That is my point.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

You are right. In fact, I like a lot that algae thing. However, it is still in its infancy, and we have to see how it works out on large scale - if there aren't any serious problems with it (pollution?), what is its growth potential, etc...
In any case, the first sector to tackle will be transportation. That's already a big chunk. Once that's done, we'll have to see in what way it can still expand in the electricity sector.

I see it this way: First of all, unlike the perfect battery or nuclear fusion, the problems remaining for algae are purely practical; not fundamental. So although I don't mean to minimize the difficulties in large-scale algae to fuel production, and there are plenty, I see nothing more than the typical sorts of engineering problems that I solve every day in order to make a living. What's more, at this time there are no other options, so we have no choice. We HAVE to make it work.

Navigation is easy when there is only one path to follow.

Just to restate the subject of the thread for late comers: Nuclear power cannot solve the oil problem.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

There's something else I thought about. You wrote that algae could be used as a CO2 scrubber for coal plants. That doesn't work! They will release the CO2 upon burning the fuel you make out of it. Algae are only CO2 neutral if they take up CO2 and then release it again upon the use of the fuel, they are no storage of new CO2.

Yes, this is an intermediate step, but it would allow for drastic reductions in CO2 emissions from coal plants [the car would be releasing CO2 no matter the source of the fuel, so this now considered to be an example of recycled carbon], while making a profit, which makes it doable. But these could eventuallly be closed systems that burn algae oil..or maybe even the entire biomass. Who needs coal? And who needs nuclear? [in principle, who even needs more than an initial charge of water at that point?]

Ultimately, we want all transportation fuel production to derive from ambient CO2.

 

[vanesch]

Laser enrichment is a red herring, no rogue state is going to enrich enough material in this century to make a bomb from it, unless some unwise major technological powers invest to make it real.

I really don't think so. Laser isotope separation IS working, only it isn't working profitably and on large scale for commercial operation and big volumes and it is difficult to put in place.

Look at http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/u-laser.htm

They state indeed that:

Although LIS appears promising, the technology has proven to be extremely difficult to master and may be beyond the reach of even technically advanced states.

But that's not the point. The point is, can one do this in a country which wants to put all the means to it, in a hidden way. A diffusion, or even a centrifuge plant, is a very big system. You can see it on satelite pictures, you need LARGE quantities of materials etc...

Concerning the AVLIS development in the US, we have:

The U.S. Enrichment Corporation came to the conclusion that AVLIS would never be profitable. In June 1999, USEC announced that it was discontinuing its development of the AVLIS process. While USEC owns the AVLIS technology, the Department retains the right to utilize the intellectual property for government purposes. When USEC terminated development of the AVLIS technology, it argued that the rates of return were not sufficient to outweigh the risks and ongoing capital expenditures necessary to develop and construct an AVLIS production plant.

They didn't say that it didn't work. They said that they didn't think it was going to be commercially profitable - that is, for a big enrichment factory one has to count on.

We also have:

One advanced enrichment technology being evaluated is the laser-based technology developed by Silex Systems Ltd. of Australia. In 2001, the third-generation Silex /USEC Inc. project moved into the pilot engineering study phase, which includes the construction and testing of prototype equipment.

So that seems to work.

Moreover, when one looks at this: http://www.laserfocusworld.com/display_article/266374/12/ARCHI/none/News/LASER-ISOTOPE-SEPARATION:-Fuel-enrichment-method-garners-GE-contrac

we have:

While the deal focuses on nuclear enrichment for peaceful purposes, relatively recent reports published by Greenpeace Australia Pacific and by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists warn of the potential of SILEX for significantly lowering logistical barriers to the international proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Now, given that Greenpeace is in there, that might be fear mongering as usual, but give it 20 or 30 years, and I wouldn't say that laser isotope separation isn't going to be THE proliferation issue.

 

[vanesch]

Yes, this is an intermediate step, but it would allow for drastic reductions in CO2 emissions from coal plants [the car would be releasing CO2 no matter the source of the fuel, so this now considered to be an example of recycled carbon], while making a profit, which makes it doable.

No, you don't seem to understand my point: in the total CO2 balance, not one single gram of CO2 is removed by the algae from the coal burning. Whether you put that coal burning CO2 directly to the atmosphere, or you first put it in algae and then to the atmosphere, it won't make a difference.

Of course, the use of the algae fuel (in a car for instance) will be CO2 neutral: what it absorbed during its growth, is released during the use of the fuel. If that replaces oil consumption, then you win. It is as if the car was working on solar. There's no discussion.
What happens here is that during growth, you remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and during use, you put it back.

But if you now make your algae grow in the CO2 from a coal fired plant, and not from atmospheric CO2, then you do NOT remove the CO2 from the atmosphere, but you will put it in the atmosphere when the algae fuel is burned. What you do then in the end is that you put the CO2 from the coal fired plant, in the atmosphere.

So making algae grow on coal fired CO2 doesn't do anything at diminishing the CO2 exhaust of a coal fired plant. That said, maybe it can stimulate its growth or anything, so if *in any case* that CO2 is going to go in the atmosphere, just as well use it one more time to do something useful. But you cannot say that algae are going to serve as a CO2 scrubber, implying that they would make coal burning clean of CO2 exhaust.

 

[vanesch]

Yes, this is an intermediate step, but it would allow for drastic reductions in CO2 emissions from coal plants [the car would be releasing CO2 no matter the source of the fuel, so this now considered to be an example of recycled carbon], while making a profit, which makes it doable. But these could eventuallly be closed systems that burn algae oil..or maybe even the entire biomass. Who needs coal? And who needs nuclear? [in principle, who even needs more than an initial charge of water at that point?]

Ultimately, we want all transportation fuel production to derive from ambient CO2.

Well, I thought that that was evident. The first step is to replace about all transport fuel by algae fuel. Let us already do that and see how it works out. As I said, if we are there (when ? Next year ? In 5 years ? In 15 years ? In 30 years ?), we can see how much remaining algae capacity there is to start replacing electricity production. I fully agree with you that at that point, if there are no major problems with the algae, and if they have replaced already all of the coal and gas fired power plants, I'm all for it to start replacing nuclear with it. But I first want to see it. I first want to see 90% of all transport run on algae fuel, I first want to see all coal replaced by algae fuel. At that point, we can think of it replacing nuclear, solar and wind.
I don't think that it will be done overnight, however, and in the mean time, I think it is a good idea to replace coal by nuclear (and a few percent of solar and wind, to remain politically correct).

BTW, as long as we can run with the open fuel cycle in nuclear, there is no "plutonium issue" of proliferation. As long as enrichment is done in some safe countries, there's no risk of HEU proliferation. And if it is just for one single more generation of nuclear power plants, there will be uranium enough to run on the open fuel cycle. So if, 30 years from now, everything is ready to run on algae, then that will be fine. If not, we might be happy that we haven't been waiting for it!
And if it does work out, then nuclear has just saved us 30 years of coal consumption, and moreover, of useless "economies in power consumption".

As I said, I like the algae thing. But so often, one has brilliant results on small scale, and real problems on large scale. Do you have an estimate of the needed surface and plant capacity and so on to replace world oil production ? And is there still room for world coal production too ? I hope we're not going to transform about all coast lines into one big stinking puddle of algae...

 

[Art]

Just to restate the subject of the thread for late comers: Nuclear power cannot solve the oil problem.

It could but there are probably better ways.

One problem cited is transportation but this is only a problem if one accepts the current paradigm whereby cars and trucks carry an on-board supply of fuel. If maglev highways were created then a car would only need enough fuel to reach the electrified highways with the added advantage safeguards could be built into dramatically the reduce the amount of road accidents. This and similar systems already works perfectly for trains and trams.

I'm not sure nuclear power is the only way or the best way to provide enough electricity to fulfil our requirements. Essentially the essence of useful energy production is heat and the Earth has plenty of that. I'd have thought we could make far greater use of geo-thermal energy than we currently do. Afterall it basically only requires we dig deep holes in the ground to tap into a practically unlimited heat source. There is also tidal power which is again under exploited despite the advantage of being a continuous source of power unlike solar and wind generation and then there is the potential for far greater use of hydro-electric power.

 

[Andre]

There are certainly many ways to generate energy, like sea water - fresh water differential for instance. But how about the feasibility of each method, the costs versus yield, sustainabililty also as function of maintainablility, the "bang for the buck", etc? Some solutions may prove to cost more than it would produce. I think that nuclear energy is one of the more efficient solutions but we would need hard figures.

Second element is what the systems produce, electricity is fine for many static appliances but it's less suitable for traffic and virtually worthless for aviation.

To remain flying, unless some magic thrust source is develloped, only high energy liquid fuels are usuable nowadays. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06229/714268-28.stm using heat, which could be generated with nuclear means. However it can't be called sustainable as coal will deplete once.

So, considering the diversity of supply and demand, it seems that all feasible solutions should be used on the long term.

 

[vanesch]

It could but there are probably better ways.

One problem cited is transportation but this is only a problem if one accepts the current paradigm whereby cars and trucks carry an on-board supply of fuel. If maglev highways were created then a car would only need enough fuel to reach the electrified highways with the added advantage safeguards could be built into dramatically the reduce the amount of road accidents. This and similar systems already works perfectly for trains and trams.

The problem is again that that is science fiction at this moment. We're not talking about solutions in 50 years from now, we're talking about energy policy in the 2 or 3 next decades. It is inconceivable to turn most of the roads into maglev highways, and most of the cars into maglev driven cars in 10 - 20 years time. I'd say that it is 100 times easier to put batteries in cars than to change cars into maglev things. That said, there already does exist a major transportation system that works (or can work) on electricity: trains.

There are 2 major energy problems:
- oil. It becomes expensive, it is in the hands of geopolitically unattractive players, it needs major military investment and interventions which is a source of a lot of terrorism etc... there are plenty of reasons to try to get rid of oil, or at least to have a competitive replacement for oil, so that it doesn't have a monopoly position in the market.
- CO2. In as much as we should take AGW seriously - and for the moment we can't exclude that possibility with any level of certainty - we should seriously cut back on the use of fossil fuels. There was oil of course, but there's mainly gas and coal.

Oil seems to be the major player for the transport sector, and coal and gas are the major players (well, essentially coal) for electricity.

If we do not take the CO2 problem seriously, there's no problem here. Coal can provide plenty of electricity, for hundreds of years to come. There IS a public health problem with coal: the emission of heavy metals, mercury, uranium, etc... but then, this wasn't a problem until now, so the killing of 500 000 people per year for electricity production is socially accepted, in the same way as killing 1 200 000 people per year for transport is socially accepted. (BTW, IMO when you see these numbers, all whining about the danger of nuclear power becomes moot)

The only EXISTING technology, today, which can claim to be able to replace coal and gas potentially ENTIRELY is nuclear. There is no developed country or large region in the world that has demonstrated getting the large majority of its electricity from anything else but coal, gas, or nuclear. Apart maybe from Sweden, which is 50-50 nuclear and hydro.

The only country that has had a major replacement for oil in transportation is Brazil, with its biofuel.

I'm not sure nuclear power is the only way or the best way to provide enough electricity to fulfil our requirements. Essentially the essence of useful energy production is heat and the Earth has plenty of that. I'd have thought we could make far greater use of geo-thermal energy than we currently do. Afterall it basically only requires we dig deep holes in the ground to tap into a practically unlimited heat source.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power

You need adapted geology for that. It isn't sufficient to dig a hole in the ground to get out boiling water (you need boiling water, not hot water). I don't think it is going to be a major player in any case. There are of course a few special places on earth, like Iceland, where geothermal IS a very interesting majority source. But not everybody lives on a mid-ocean rig!

There is also tidal power which is again under exploited despite the advantage of being a continuous source of power unlike solar and wind generation and then there is the potential for far greater use of hydro-electric power.

Although tidal power can be expanded (there is not much of it), I also seriously doubt that this is a serious player, because you need special geography for it. There are only so many coastal areas where the tides are strong enough to allow for a useful tidal plant. You're not going to get hundreds of gigawatts out of that.

Hydro, on the other hand, is almost already completely exploited where possible. I don't think it is possible to double hydro power worldwide.

With both of these techniques, there is a non-negligible ecological impact if done on large scale.

Wind and solar have the IMO extremely difficult problem of intermittency.

In any case, the only non-CO2 technology that has already shown its merit for electricity production is nuclear, and the only practical replacement for oil in the transport has been shown to be biofuel.

Nothing stops us of course from experimenting, and trying out other technologies. But they cannot claim, as of yet, such a success that they can be used as an argument against those technologies that HAVE shown to work. You can't hope to bring to 70% in a few decades a technology that hasn't yet passed somewhere the 30%, and that has worldwide less than a few %.

Things can be different 30 years from now, but in the coming decades, we can't count on any sci-fi to solve the issues ; we have to make plans with something that has already shown its utility. Then maybe, we don't have to. If AGW turns out to be false, and if ~500 000 dead per year remain socially acceptable, then coal can be used for electricity generation. If the oil price continues to rise, then the market will automatically find a solution to that problem. But one can't on one hand, use a public policy worldwide that acts upon the hypothesis of AGW, wants to incite people to use less electricity, bring out penalties for inefficient appliances and cars, and then deny a full and rapid development of the only technology that has shown to be able to replace coal and gas.

 

[vanesch]

However it can't be called sustainable as coal will deplete once.

"Sustainable" doesn't mean: "must have the potential to work indefinitely". The UN definition of sustainable is:

Believing that sustainable development, which implies meeting the needs
of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs, should become a central guiding principle of the United
Nations,...

from http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/42/ares42-187.htm

This is a very sensible definition. We don't have to solve the transport and electricity production for 100 years from now, and certainly not 500 years from now. That would be like putting the burden of transportation and electricity (what ?) production of our times in the hands of the people living 100 or 500 years ago. We don't have to solve the problems of the future generations: we have to solve our own. Only, in doing so, we mustn't make such a mess that the problems of the future generations are more involved and their ability to solve them, compromised.

So we may use coal. We may not deplete it. We should think of another solution to what coal is doing for us before we deplete it. As there is still enough for more than 1000 years of coal, we still have time. Oil can be different. We might be depleting it right now.

And of course, if AGW has something to it, we may not take a major risk with the future generations.

 

[mheslep]

I remember.

However,
1) that thing is from 1985, so now it might be more expensive (shall we take nuclear plant prices from beginning of the 80ies ?)
2) it is 2100 MW generating, but only 420 MW pumping

2800 now. They upgraded the '85 turbines a couple years ago - pulled the blades, shipped them back to GE, when they came back - 700MW upgrade.

so if they have to pump (day) as much as they consume (night), you only have 420 MW available, hence about $4,- per installed reversible watt.

That is only for your chosen duty cycle. If you want to look at duty cycle then you'd measure a storage facility by kWh, not W. Regardless of how long the system generates its power rating is still 2800MW.

 

[Andre]

And of course, if AGW has something to it, we may not take a major risk with the future generations.

You are daring me, Vanesch.

I'll get back to that, strongly, but later. A lot of distraction now.

 

[mheslep]

I really don't think so. Laser isotope separation IS working, only it isn't working profitably and on large scale for commercial operation and big volumes and it is difficult to put in place.

Look at http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/u-laser.htm

They state indeed that:
"Although LIS appears promising, the technology has proven to be extremely difficult to master and may be beyond the reach of even technically advanced states."
But that's not the point. The point is, can one do this in a country which wants to put all the means to it, in a hidden way. A diffusion, or even a centrifuge plant, is a very big system. You can see it on satellite pictures, you need LARGE quantities of materials etc...

No that is exactly the point. LIS can only produce micrograms of enriched material. To attempt to scale it up to weapons level with the current state of the art would not just be unprofitable it would be impractical to the point of impossibility. Heck, multiplying an LIS setup a million fold might just make it bigger than a centrifuge enrichment facility.

So that seems to work.

In the lab! It is useless as a path to a weapon at the current state of the art.

Now, given that Greenpeace is in there, that might be fear mongering as usual, but give it 20 or 30 years, and I wouldn't say that laser isotope separation isn't going to be THE proliferation issue.

That was my original point. LIF is no bother at present as a proliferation issue and it will likely stay that way unless a technically highly competent, but foolish, state pushes it hard.

 

[mheslep]

I see it this way: First of all, unlike the perfect battery or nuclear fusion, the problems remaining for algae are purely practical; not fundamental. So although I don't mean to minimize the difficulties in large-scale algae to fuel production, and there are plenty, I see nothing more than the typical sorts of engineering problems that I solve every day in order to make a living. What's more, at this time there are no other options, so we have no choice. We HAVE to make it work.

I hope algae-oil works out, it appears to be perhaps the most promising bet. But I have not seen even an attempt made at an argument to defend the claim that there is no other choice.

Just to restate the subject of the thread for late comers: Nuclear power cannot solve the oil problem.

So you claim, and it may be true, but I have not seen a good argument here for that thesis. Saying we don't have viable electric cars is specious. We don't have the required capacity today of algae oil, ethanol, nuclear, fossil oil reserves or any other source, to meet the predicted demand 10 years hence. And nuclear need not replace all fossil oil to solve the oil problem; just replacing imports would relieve the price pressure and availability issues. If you have a good technical argument as to why nuclear/E cars nor anything else but algae will work then I am all eyes.

 

[mheslep]

...Second element is what the systems produce, electricity is fine for many static appliances but it's less suitable for traffic and virtually worthless for aviation.

To remain flying, unless some magic thrust source is develloped, only high energy liquid fuels are usuable nowadays. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06229/714268-28.stm using heat, which could be generated with nuclear means. However it can't be called sustainable as coal will deplete once.

So, considering the diversity of supply and demand, it seems that all feasible solutions should be used on the long term.

Just so we know which function needs how much:
US Oil for transportation, yr 2007:
69% (and rising as oil is no longer preferred for E power generation)
http://www.eia.doe.gov/aer/diagram2.html

Transportation breakdown, yr 2002:
light duty vehicles - 61%
commercial light trucks - 2%
heavy trucks - 14%
airplanes - 10%
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/archive/aeo04/pdf/appa.pdf , table A7

So solve the cars and light trucks problem, possibly w/ plug-in hybrids, and then you'll ample left over for air transport.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

No, you don't seem to understand my point: in the total CO2 balance, not one single gram of CO2 is removed by the algae from the coal burning. Whether you put that coal burning CO2 directly to the atmosphere, or you first put it in algae and then to the atmosphere, it won't make a difference.

Of course, the use of the algae fuel (in a car for instance) will be CO2 neutral: what it absorbed during its growth, is released during the use of the fuel. If that replaces oil consumption, then you win. It is as if the car was working on solar. There's no discussion.
What happens here is that during growth, you remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and during use, you put it back.

But if you now make your algae grow in the CO2 from a coal fired plant, and not from atmospheric CO2, then you do NOT remove the CO2 from the atmosphere, but you will put it in the atmosphere when the algae fuel is burned. What you do then in the end is that you put the CO2 from the coal fired plant, in the atmosphere.

So making algae grow on coal fired CO2 doesn't do anything at diminishing the CO2 exhaust of a coal fired plant. That said, maybe it can stimulate its growth or anything, so if *in any case* that CO2 is going to go in the atmosphere, just as well use it one more time to do something useful. But you cannot say that algae are going to serve as a CO2 scrubber, implying that they would make coal burning clean of CO2 exhaust.

What I am saying is that if we grow algae with coal, we recycle the carbon for use as fuel. So rather than releasing the CO2 from coal directly, it is released when the autos burn the fuel. But it used twice and released once, so in effect we have either eliminated the emissions from coal, or we have eliminated the emissions from autos, but not both.

Close systems would allow for power generation without any emissions whatsoever, but that would not allow for the production of transportation fuels. However, if algae can be made practical for fuel production, the replacement of coal power with closed algae systems is just a step away.

Algae from coal may be a practical intermediate step to an algae energy base. I know it isn't ideal, but it may be needed for economic reasons until the algae market is well established. When we have solved the fuel problem, we can start converting the coal plants to closed algae power systems.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Algae can be used to remove CO2 from the global system if it is allowed to sink to the ocean floor or is otherwise sequestered. One company was trying to do this with open ocean blooms. In return they hoped to get carbon credits.

 

[GTrax]

What I am saying is that if we grow algae with coal, we recycle the carbon for use as fuel. So rather than releasing the CO2 from coal directly, it is released when the autos burn the fuel. But it used twice and released once, so in effect we have either eliminated the emissions from coal, or we have eliminated the emissions from autos, but not both.

Er.. "recycle the carbon for use as fuel" ? OK - I maybe just don't understand enough about the algae process energy balance. At what stage in the process did the algae contrive to put hydrogen back with the carbon to result in anything we might call "fuel"?

I am happier in thinking that the worlds best, most evolved, sun-seeking, space sharing, self propagating solar energy collectors with a built-in CO2 collection and long-term storage mechanisms are anything with leaves! If we ferment them after, and burn the product, we are at least neutral, but we should strive to repair some of the last two centuries worth of damage.

Could diverting some energy to desalination, and desert reclamation be a positive thing?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Er.. "recycle the carbon for use as fuel" ? OK - I maybe just don't understand enough about the algae process energy balance. At what stage in the process did the algae contrive to put hydrogen back with the carbon to result in anything we might call "fuel"?

That is just about all that algae does. It absorbs CO2 and water to make a high quality fuel, using the energy from sunlight. It can be used to make ethanol, biodiesel, or hydrogen, but for now biodiesel is the best option.

 

[vanesch]

What I am saying is that if we grow algae with coal, we recycle the carbon for use as fuel. So rather than releasing the CO2 from coal directly, it is released when the autos burn the fuel. But it used twice and released once, so in effect we have either eliminated the emissions from coal, or we have eliminated the emissions from autos, but not both.

Again, you didn't "use it twice". You made biofuel for cars. So the cars are not going to emit a net amount of CO2, that's true. I thought that was the whole business: make biofuels for cars.

What doesn't make a difference at all, is whether those algae have been grown in the atmosphere, or in the exhaust of a coal fired plant. The coal fired plant puts, at the end of the day, a certain amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Close systems would allow for power generation without any emissions whatsoever, but that would not allow for the production of transportation fuels. However, if algae can be made practical for fuel production, the replacement of coal power with closed algae systems is just a step away.

Yes, that's using biofuel to make electricity. But I don't see what coal has to do with that ?

Algae from coal may be a practical intermediate step to an algae energy base. I know it isn't ideal, but it may be needed for economic reasons until the algae market is well established. When we have solved the fuel problem, we can start converting the coal plants to closed algae power systems.

Really, I don't see why you call that "algae from coal". They would grow just as well without the coal, no ? Algae make biofuel. With that biofuel, you can drive cars, or drive a biofuel power plant. All that is CO2-neutral in the long run. If you burn coal, you add CO2 to the atmosphere, irreversibly. The quantity of coal you've burned, will end up in the atmosphere.

 

[B. Elliott]

I've been following this thread from the beginning and just want to make sure I'm seeing the overall picture correctly; The algae would just be a way of harnessing the CO2 to use later?

Wouldn't progressing towards power production which (either now or eventually) emits no CO2 whatsoever, be the better approach?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Again, you didn't "use it twice". You made biofuel for cars. So the cars are not going to emit a net amount of CO2, that's true. I thought that was the whole business: make biofuels for cars.

What doesn't make a difference at all, is whether those algae have been grown in the atmosphere, or in the exhaust of a coal fired plant. The coal fired plant puts, at the end of the day, a certain amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

The point is to make fuel for autos. But first: We did use the carbon twice, didn't we? Once to generate electricity from coal, and once to power a car?

The motivation for this is that it is easier to grow algae at the required rates if we provide supplemental CO2. Ideally this would all come from natural sources, but we can certainly use the CO2 from coal plants to get a jump start. Again, my thinking is that the sooner we can become profitable making fuel from algae, the better, and using coal fire exhuast is an excellent means to that end. But again, this would only be an intermediate step, because as you have shown, it doesn't solve the carbon problem entirely - we are still releasing the carbon from the coal. But we would not be releasing the carbon that would otherwise come from petroleum, so it is a net gain if we look at both the autos and the coal plant.

Yes, that's using biofuel to make electricity. But I don't see what coal has to do with that ?

Given the above motivation to use the CO2 from coal fire to quickly grow algae for biodiesel production, we are left with a coal plant exhausting into a field of semi-closed algae bioreactors. As soon as the algae industry evolves enough to produce fuel economically from ambient or natural sources of CO2, and in order to avoid releasing any more carbon from coal by making fuel for cars, we now replace the coal with algae biomass, or algae oil, and completely close the system. In principle, nothing goes into or out of the system except the end product of electrical power. The logic for this is that not only do we already have a bioreactor system next to the coal plant, but also that the plant can likely be converted to run on substitute fuel sources. So I am really just thinking of the economics here.

Really, I don't see why you call that "algae from coal". They would grow just as well without the coal, no ?

So the answer here is no. Algae can be grown without additional CO2, but it can be grown much more quickly and profitably if we have a source of CO2 beyond the ambient levels.

Algae make biofuel. With that biofuel, you can drive cars, or drive a biofuel power plant. All that is CO2-neutral in the long run. If you burn coal, you add CO2 to the atmosphere, irreversibly. The quantity of coal you've burned, will end up in the atmosphere.

Yes, we do agree, but looking at this with an eye to the economics, using coal exhaust may help to move things along more quickly as the industry struggles to take hold. Presumably, carbon taxes will eventually make coal power obsolete, and we can run everything on pure algae power derived from ambient, or would-be ambient CO2, such as from decaying biomass.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I've been following this thread from the beginning and just want to make sure I'm seeing the overall picture correctly; The algae would just be a way of harnessing the CO2 to use later?

Wouldn't progressing towards power production which (either now or eventually) emits no CO2 whatsoever, be the better approach?

Hopefully I have explained my thinking in the post above. We don't have to have additional CO2 [beyond ambient] to grow algae, but it may help to get the industry started by making it more economical. Ultimately, if we can produce cost competitive fuels from algae using only ambient CO2, the fuel becomes carbon neutral - we only release into the atmosphere the carbon that was absorbed from it in order to grow the algae. So at that point we are not releasing any "new" CO2.

It is also possible that with a little more innovation, we will find that the incident solar flux and the ambient temperatures are the only limiting factors for algae growth, and we won't need the additonal CO2 to be profitable. But right now the struggle is to make algae based fuels profitable as quickly as possible. If we can do this while only solving part of the carbon problem initially, IMO we are still way ahead of where we are today.

Again, it appears that we have no other options to oil. And we won't make the change until the economics work. Ultimately, energy markets are driven by price and not by what makes sense, or by what we SHOULD do, so we have to be competitive in order to have any chance at all of success.

Eventually the price of fuel may be high enough that this will all be moot. Even the worst bioreactor designs appear to be profitable at $15 to $20 a gallon for oil.

We want to solve the carbon problem; there is no argument from me on that one. But we also have to think beyond carbon. If we don't solve the oil supply problem, and soon, carbon may be the least of our concerns. Already we have seen rioting and mass protests because of the price of oil, and India and China are coming online quickly; in the case of China, more quickly than we had hoped.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The coal plants will be there whether or not we start building nuclear plants.

 

[vanesch]

T
The motivation for this is that it is easier to grow algae at the required rates if we provide supplemental CO2. Ideally this would all come from natural sources, but we can certainly use the CO2 from coal plants to get a jump start.

Ah, I didn't understand that it was somehow easier to grow algae with extra CO2.
A bit like plant growth in an aquarium, then ?

So your reasoning is: given that there will be still for some time coal fired or gas fired plants that *in any case* will put out a flow of CO2, let us just make use of it in the beginning to get the algae grow quicker. That makes sense.

Of course, there's a minor danger there on two levels: first of all, coal fired plants usually don't reside at the seaside (or do they ?), and second, one might concentrate on a species of algae (natural or bio-engineered) which are optimized to work in high-CO2 environments, which might not be adapted to atmospheric conditions. But I agree that these are minor considerations.

Given the above motivation to use the CO2 from coal fire to quickly grow algae for biodiesel production, we are left with a coal plant exhausting into a field of semi-closed algae bioreactors. As soon as the algae industry evolves enough to produce fuel economically from ambient or natural sources of CO2, and in order to avoid releasing any more carbon from coal by making fuel for cars, we now replace the coal with algae biomass, or algae oil, and completely close the system. In principle, nothing goes into or out of the system except the end product of electrical power. The logic for this is that not only do we already have a bioreactor system next to the coal plant, but also that the plant can likely be converted to run on substitute fuel sources. So I am really just thinking of the economics here.

That makes sense. But I think one should first concentrate on replacing oil for transport, before replacing coal for electricity. Now, if the boom is so quick that one can do it "all at once", then I don't mind. However, if growth is slow, I'd give preference to replacement for oil for transport, simply because there are no genuine alternatives available at this moment, while there is nuclear available for electricity (technology-wise).

In summary, if it takes you 10 years to switch everything (electricity + transport) to algae biofuel, then go ahead. If it takes you 40-50 years, then I'd give preference to algae for transport, and nuclear for electricity, because otherwise we will still have 3 or 4 decades of coal ahead.

So the answer here is no. Algae can be grown without additional CO2, but it can be grown much more quickly and profitably if we have a source of CO2 beyond the ambient levels.

This is what I hadn't figured out.

 

[NeoDevin]

Isn't algae oil basically just an efficient `battery' for solar power?

Which is more energy efficient, algae or solar cells?

 

[vanesch]

Isn't algae oil basically just an efficient `battery' for solar power?
Which is more energy efficient, algae or solar cells?

You are right that algae are a kind of battery for solar energy (just as fossil fuels are, in fact).
Solar cells aren't a battery for solar energy, they are an immediate conversion. I guess they are way more efficient still than the cycle: sunshine - algea growth - oil production - oil burning - electricity, but algae have the big advantage of producing oil when you can use it.

 

[NeoDevin]

Solar cells aren't a battery for solar energy, they are an immediate conversion. I guess they are way more efficient still than the cycle: sunshine - algea growth - oil production - oil burning - electricity, but algae have the big advantage of producing oil when you can use it.

I know solar cells aren't a battery. I meant to ask which was more efficient at converting solar energy to a useable form (electricity/chemical), which you answered anyways. (Has an actual comparison been done though?)